We
all love the game of chess. Some love it because of its infinite
possibilities that even computers cannot calculate. Some love it because
of its very competitive nature. Some love it because most of the games
are decided by skill and not by luck.
Regardless of that 'why' these are the 11 mistakes you don't want to make in your chess.

11. Playing chess to win prize money

I've met people that honestly think that they can spend a few hours on chess, enter a Big Open Tournament and BOOM win
$10,000. Wrong. Unless you have a passion for chess, spend a lot of
your time to study and practice chess you cannot succeed at any chess
tournament. The tournaments with a big prize fund are especially
competitive. Don't do it, if you want to save yourself a big
disappointment and time. Money shouldn't be a motivation at whatever you
do, chess included.

10. Quitting playing chess after a lose

It's not a good habit to quit anything (except for smoking) if you
fail once. All players, big and small have lost games. It's normal. If
they had quit, there would have been no Fischer, Kasparov or Carlsen as
we know them today. Loss in chess should be a signal to you that more
training is necessary. It should motivate you to work harder and to
play better in the next game. If you think about a loss from this
perspective, you will succeed.

9.Stressing out too much about a chess game

Some players get extremely stressed out before and during chess
games. Stress is a negative, disruptive factor which will not do
anything good to your cool head and logical thinking. In a state of
stress, you would waste extra time double checking variations and will
not be able to completely focus on the position. In order to play high
level chess, you need to stop caring about the outcome and just to play
your game. If you take a serious tournament game with the same ease you
play a friendly game you will relax and your results will improve. Give
it a try.

8. Blaming somebody else for your failures

In order to improve at chess you need to be honest with yourself and
take full responsibility for your actions (moves). That means if you
lose a game, you shouldn't say something like 'that's because of the
stupid blunder on move 20' or 'I did not get enough sleep, so couldn't
concentrate', etc. By finding a true cause of your loss, you will
benefit much more than if you come up with some common excuse. You may
want to read about identifying strengths and weaknesses of your game here.

7. Not learning from your own mistakes

Of course it would be perfect if we could learn from somebody else's
mistakes. Unfortunately, that's not how it works at chess. In most
cases, we need to actually lose a game or two by getting back-rank
mated in order to start being aware of certain dangers. Use this
extremely powerful learning tool to your advantage. You can learn much
better from things if you have experienced it yourself. Read 7 deadly mistakes every novice player makes and... avoid it.

6. Putting chess in front of everything else

Some people get involved with chess so much that they forget
everything else: work, family, responsibilities, health, etc. Of
course, it is good for your chess career to concentrate only on chess.
But be careful, you may lose motivation and get 'burned out' by chess.
The best strategy is to study chess by little bits during a long period
of time. Remember, chess is a marathon, not a sprint. Read about chess
time management in 10 Chess Improvement Rules Most Players Forget.

5. Spending too much time accumulating knowledge you would never use in a real game

It's is true that if you study chess more, you will become better at
it. But the key is to study the right things. For example, reading about
the history of chess will not help you much in your next 1.d4 game.
Memorizing 25 different variations of Sicilian defense 20 moves deep
will not help you to become a better chess player. In fact, if your
opponent plays Queen's Gambit Declined, it won't help you at all. If you just spend a quarter of this time solving tactics, working on endgames and analyzing your own games
you will progress much faster, and all the work will pay off quickly.
You can check the following things about improving at chess: this and this.

4. Buying many chess books and never reading them

The point of chess books is that they possess knowledge that can make
you a better chess player. That is only true with one condition: you
actually need to read study them. Chess books are no
good if they are just sitting on the shelf. Studying of a chess book
includes reading it, thinking about the ideas presented and going over
the positions presented on a chess board. Many people just read chess
books, instead of studying them, skipping diagrams and notations. It may
be good from the entertainment point of view, but does little good for
the training process.

3. Worrying about rating points more than the game itself

Some player get more worried about losing rating points,
than about the game of chess in general. Points are just given to you
for an estimation of your strength purpose. Rating should not act as a
disrupting factor, especially during the game.

2. Having "I'm always right" attitude

This is a kind of attitude that would prevent you from making
progress at chess or significantly slow it down. In order to improve,
you need to be self-critical and to admit your own mistakes. If you lost
because of the badly played opening, you should analyze the lines and
make corresponding corrections in your repertoire. If you lost due to
some other reason you need to work on that, it's probably your weak side
of chess.

1. Pursuing chess as a professional career

While playing chess may seem like an amazing opportunity to be turned
into a professional career you should consider all pros and cons. There
are only about 1300 grandmasters in the world. Their rating varies from
about 2500 to 2800 something. These are considered "professional chess
players", meaning they are making most of their living playing chess.
Peter Zhdanov of Pogonina.com published a list of highest earning chess players of 2012
from which it's clear that only 2-3 players made more than $1,000,000
in year 2012. The number 10 player made about $150,000 the same year.
Just think about it #10 player in the world is about 2730 ELO. What
about those who are 2500-2600. How much you think they make? You've got
the idea.
The point is simple, unless you are in the top 100,
it's not easy to make decent leaving from playing chess, especially if
you need to play opens instead of invitational tournaments with
appearance fees which are only available for top GMs.

A lot of people are asking the same question over and over again, how
to improve in chess? So, I have decided to write this whole thing once
and for all. First of all it is important to know at what level you are
playing now. It would really depend what to study and how to improve
from the player's current (estimated) rating. Here is a chart that gives
an idea on what should players work on at different levels of their
chess career:

1200-1399: Study more openings, but do not stick with "rarely
played variations". It is a huge mistake that a LOT of chess player
make while studying openings, to study rarely played/unusual lines which
most likely would never come up in real life tournaments. Studying
standard opening lines would yield a lot more results! Spend maximum
of 20% of your study time to study openings. Until 1800 level openings
aren't very important. Concentrate more on middle game and tactics.

1400-1599: Endgame is the key on this level. Only imagine
the advantage you get against your opponent if you know how to play
endgame well and your opponent does not. The odds are that your opponent
will loose the endgame almost immediately. Study basic endgame schemes:
King + Pawn vs. King, King + 2 Pawns vs. King, King + Pawn vs. King + 2
Pawns and so on. Besides the endgame do tactics problems (puzzles).
Play as much chess as possible especially in real life over the board
tournaments with a long time control (that's where you learn the most).

1600-1799: If you got on this level it means you are already
strong, very solid chess player which knows a lot about all stages of
the game of chess. Keep working on your middle game, strategy and
tactics. Try to play blindfold chess. It is easy these days, since
programs like Chessmaster 10th offer really nice options of blindfold
chess. You are basically only see the chess board with no pieces on it,
but you can move these empty squares and play chess (because you know
that knights are on b1 and c1, bishops are on c1 and g1 and so on).
During the game you have to keep all the pieces in your head, since they
are invisible which is hard in the beginning. Play really weak players
first. Blindfold chess helps to develop player's visualization
ability and eliminates most blunders. All GMs are able to play blindfold
chess well.

1800-1999: Wow, you are ready to become an expert. Now it is
a good time to systemize your opening repertoire. Ideally, you should
know very well 2-3 openings for white and 2 for Black. The key to
advancing to the expert level here is to analyze your own games. After
the game, sit down with a chessboard, paper and pen and go over the game
move by move writing down thoughts on your own and your opponent's
moves. Only then you may check your game with an engine (Rybka, Fritz,
etc). The number #1 mistake chess players make, they either do not
analyze their games at all or analyze them by using chess program right
away. This is a big mistake which slows down chess progress.The main
idea of analysis is not to look at what computer thinks was a good move,
but to look for that move yourself! Would it make sense to solve chess
tactics puzzles by plugging them into a chess engine? Probably not.Also
it is great idea to go over GM games and think them over. The best way
to go over these high level games is to first go over all the moves
without author's comments and only second time read the comments and
annotations. This works great with the openings too. Remember that when
you read your opening book tomorrow.

2000-2199: Congratulations, you are now an Expert. Keep
working on chess and I'm sure you'll be able to make at least a Master
sometime soon and when you do, please, send me a message saying "Hi! I
am a Master now!"

What
exactly to do in order to improve my chess? It is a common question I
hear from different players all around, including my page on Facebook
and Twitter.
I already gave an outline how to get better at chess, you may want to review it before reading further.
In
this article, I will suggest the list of things you need to take care
of in order to quickly and effectively improve your game and gain elo
points.

I believe that very important aspect of the rapid chess
improvement is properly organized training process. It can be divided
into the following categories:

Evaluation of Position

Opening Repertoire

Tactical Vision

Calculation Technique

Strategy

Endgame

These are very broad categories; many books have been published on
each and every category from this list. You may ask why the Middle game
is not present here? Actually it is, Middle game is represented in form
of evaluation of position, strategy and calculation. But, these elements
can also be applied to other stages of the game as well. If you want to
learn to play chess better you will need to master all these aspects of
play.
I will discuss Evaluation of Position in detail today, and save other categories for later time.Evaluation of Position
What is evaluation of position? Basically it is a technique or an
algorithm that let a chess player know what side is better in particular
position on the board. It is a very important component of the game of
chess. Based on that evaluation, chess player is making decisions for
his next move or sequence of moves. It is well known fact that if you having a positional advantage you must attack, else you’re risking losing it.
Needless to say, mistakes in evaluation of position can turn out to be
deadly. Here is a quick example: if a player thinks that he will win
that endgame after the rook exchange, but his evaluation of position
isn’t correct, he will lose the endgame by exchanging the rooks.
Why computers can play chess so well? They have precise algorithm of
how the position changes with one or another move. Why GMs always beat
amateurs? Because they can evaluate positions extremely well. Lesson?
In order to play good chess you need to learn to evaluate chess positions precisely.
Very common guideline for evaluating all chess positions consists of 4 categories:

King’s safety

Material on the board

Pieces activity

Pawn structure

We can assign for each of these categories the numeric value similar
way that it is assigned in chess programs such as Fritz and Chessmaster.King Safety – the difference of positions of the Kings. If one
King is relatively safe in respect to the other one he gets a value
from +1 to +2 points. We don’t take into account positions where a
forced mate exists.Material on the board - standard numeric values for the pawns
and pieces can be used here. So, Pawn = 1 point, Bishop = 3 point,
Knight = 3 points, Rook = 5 points, Queen = 9 points, King is assigned
to 3.5 points in the endgame.Pieces Activity - defined as the difference of activity
between your piece and similar piece in the opponent’s camp (example
Knight vs. Knight, Rook vs. Rook and Queen vs. Queen, etc.) Maximum
difference in activity will be 1.5 points or 1.5 pawns.Pawn Structure – control of importantsquares (center)
by pawns, weak pawns, strong pawns, isolated pawns past pawns can give
maximum advantage of 2 points. Of course we don’t take into account
extreme cases where pawn can checkmate or promote to a Queen.
If White is better in particular position we will assign a positive
value, such as +3, would correspond that White is 3 pawns up in position
and material together. If Black is better we will write -3, which
would mean Black is 3 pawns up. Take a look at the position below:

White to move

Let’s evaluate the position above according to our 4 categories.

King Safety – White King have castled, while Black King is stuck on f8 and cannot castle. We assign a score of +0.5, or half a pawn, to White, since there is no immediate danger due to position of Black King.

Material – Whitehas an extra pawn on the King’s side. We give +1 to White, and total score becomes +1.5.

Piece Activity – White’s Rook on a1 is equal to Black’s Rook on a8, White’s Rook on f8 is somewhat more active than Black’s Rook on h8 (+0.25), White’s Bishop on c1 is less active than the Black’s Bishop on d6 (-0.25),
White’s Bishop on b5 is equal to Black’s Bishop on e6, White’s Queen
on d5 seems to be more active than Black’s Queen, but it’s also more
vulnerable for threats by Bishops, so we assume they’re equal. Total
Score +1.5

Pawn Structure – as we said previously White is a pawn up,
which gives them a King’s side 4 to 3 majority. There is an equal number
of pawn on the Queen’s side. We have counted pawn’s majority in
Material section, total score doesn’t change: +1.5, or we can say that White is 1.5 pawns better.

If we check this position with the computer (I used Fritz 10), it gives +- 1.54 at depth of 3/43 and recommends the line 16.Qxb7 Rb8 17.Qa6 Bc5 18.f5 Bc8 19.Qc6 Qe7 20.Ba6 Bxe3+ 21.Kh1 Bxh6 22. Qxh6 +- . Our evaluation of +1.5 seems to be pretty good there.
I recommend practicing this system on some random positions and
applying this method to your own over the board (OTB) games. It is not
necessary to apply this method after each move, in fact it would be very
time consuming and impractical to do that. You need to do the deep
evaluation only in critical positions, such as after the end of an
opening theory or a critical position when it is hard to see what to
play. It is a very good method to apply if you don’t know what to do in
positional game. It will guide you through the game, show what pieces to
exchange (your inactive pieces for active pieces of your opponent).

Today's article is somewhat a continuation of the last week's chess saga about finding strengths and weaknesses of your chess. We will talk about developing a chess study program that would suits individual needs for players it's designed for.
What is the most important in the chess program? Of course it needs
to be effective, meaning that after investing your time in it your chess strength should increase. It is very difficult to create a universal study plan that will suit all chess players.
The plan should be based on two main parameters: players overall
chess ability (rating) and player's individual strengths and weaknesses.
In order to evaluate which positions you understand the best and what
type of openings yield best performance I suggest reading finding strengths and weaknesses of your chess.
I will show you detailed chess training program that is designed for a
players up to 2100 rating. If your rating is much below that you should
not feel intimidated. Regardless of your current chess level you will
greatly improve your chess by following the themes presented below.Chess Training Program (up to 2100 ELO)1. TACTICS BASICS [20 hours]
This a very or maybe even the most important part of chess training.
Surprisingly enough most chess player don't like working on chess
tactics puzzles and get very surprised why the miss easy tactics and
lose the game against those that do. Don't make this mistake and spend
enough time on it. Chess progress will come quick if you stick to daily
tactics routine.
You can jump start your tactics training with simple exercises from here or here. For more serious training I would recommend getting a specially designed software like CT-ART. Chess Master and Chess King (review) have some solvable tactics problems as well. The main idea of solving tactical problems is to improve your
calculating ability, increase board visualization ability and overall
chess awareness. 2. STRATEGY BASICS [30 hours]This are very fundamental middle game themes that every chess
player should know. You should find chess literature and study the
following topics thoroughly. If you have an access to a chess database
with the ability to search games by themes (like ChessBase) you should
select some of these themes and study related masters/grandmaster games.
If you have annotated game collection, it's even more useful. After you
read theory and study high level games, you should spend some time on
analyzes of your own games on these themes and solving tactics problems
related to these themes.List of topics to study:
- Pawn advantage on one side of the board
- Pawn chain
- Better pawn structure
- Blockade
- Isolated pawn in the center
- Weak pawns
- Closed center3. ENDGAME BASICS [30 hours]
Endgame is another extremely important area of the game that needs to
be studied thoroughly in order to get consistently good results at
chess. The method of studying endgames is similar to those of middle
games. You should first read some theory about the endgame themes below.
For that I would recommend using books such as Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual , Pandolfini's Endgame Course or
any other endgame resource you wish to use. Then, again if you have an
access to a chess database with ability to search by themes, you can
sort out high level games on the particular ending and go through it.
You can practice playing certain endgame positions against the computer
and then check it with Nalimov's Tablebase.List of topics to study:
- Bishop vs. pawns
- Opposite color bishops
- Same color bishops
- Knight vs. pawns
- Knight endgames
- Bishop vs. knight
- Rook vs. pawns
- Rook endgames
- Queen endgames

Good luck with training program. Remember if you stay dedicated to one thing, the results will come!

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

About 8.6% of the world’s population or roughly 700 million people play chess.
Majority of these players will never reach even 1000 rating level which is considered to be a beginner’s strength.
Why is that the case? How to change it? Most people are not good at chess because they:

1. Don’t take chess seriously enough

Many novice chess players don’t really care about the outcome of the
game. They just play chess for fun, without being competitive and
without the drive the win. These players forget about the game once
it’s over and never come back to look at it again. With this attitude
it's difficult to become a better player.

Quick fix:

The only way to become better at something is to be serious about it, care about the outcome and spend time on training.

2. Give up chess too soon

Some people give chess a try by playing one or two games. The
decision, if they like the game or not, greatly depends on the outcome
of these two games. If a person wins, he would probably stick with chess
for a few more games. If he loses he would probably say, chess is not
for him.

Quick fix:

Don’t give up chess after a negative outcome of the game. Play more
games against opponents of different strengths, watch professional chess
tournaments, look over a few chess books or magazines and then decide
for yourself if it’s a game for you. Many famous people play chess.

3. Don’t take any steps to get better at chess

Many people play chess for fun without taking any steps for improvement.
They play infinite number of games, playing the same openings, trying
to checkmate an opponent the same way. If they have a flow in their
chess understanding (almost 100% true for this level) they would lose
limitless number of games the same way too. Finally they say the game is
boring and stop playing at all.

Quick fix:

Analyze your games. Even a short replay of your own game can help you
to conclude what usually goes wrong. Then, work on fixing it. You will
enjoy chess much more, once you become a better player!

4. Don’t calculate variations

There are many novice players out there, who don’t feel like
calculating deeper than one move ahead. They use their intuition to
judge if the move is good or not. Although, the intuition can be a
valuable resource for a chess player, calculation of variations is
something that will help you win a lot more games, than solely relying
on intuition and luck!

Quick fix:

Try not to play moves without first seeing the whole line. At first,
you will be able to see 1-2 moves ahead, then once you train more, you
will be able to improve your calculation abilities to 3-4 moves ahead.
Grandmasters can calculate up to 20 moves deep in some positions.

5. Don’t mind giving up pawns (or even pieces)

The simplest rule of chess states that if you don’t want to lose the
game too early do not give up material for no reason. Novice players are
struggling from this mistake the most. They can get too concentrated on
some minor things (castling, development, etc.) that they forget to
move their pawn and pieces to safety. Lost pieces = lost games.

Quick fix:

Before making moves, make sure none of your pieces are under attack.

6. Think that it’s impossible to improve at chess

Some players think that it’s not possible to improve at chess more
than they already have achieved. They think that chess level is limited
by inherent factors such as IQ and cannot be increased. I’m not sure if
the IQ of a person
can be increased or not, but I’m 100% sure that any chess player, no
matter how strong or weak can still make progress at chess if follows
the right training program.

Quick fix:

Follow a training program which included combinational training:
openings, tactics, attack techniques and the endgames. You should check
out the following programs: here and here.

7. Play self-invented openings

While it may be a good idea to surprise your opponent, playing a
self-invented opening is definitely not the best way to do it.
Reinventing the wheel is something that you probably should avoid at
chess. Playing standard lines is a better idea, since they are developed
to give a player (you) the most favorable position possible.

Quick fix:

Study one opening line for white and one line for black to start with and then build up on this basic opening repertoire.

8. Don’t have any plan

Having a plan at chess is really and I mean it, really important. A player with a bad plan would likely a player who has no plan at all.

Quick fix:

Always have a plan in your games. It doesn’t have to be completely
accurate, but you should always have an idea of what to do next.
Planning small things like castling and developing rooks on open a and b
files is really essential for success at chess.

9. Don’t see the whole chess board

Many novice chess players have difficulty seeing the whole chess
board. Well, they see the board, but they don’t see all the threats that
may be coming from the opponent’s pieces located far away from them
(geographically, say in the opposite corner of the board). This leads to
lost queens and checkmates in one. Even grandmasters miss mates like that sometimes.

Quick fix:

Look at all the pieces on the board equally. If some pieces are
further away from your king than other, it doesn’t mean they are less
dangerous.

10. Don’t look for checkmates

This maybe a continuation of a previous point, but surprisingly
enough, many novice chess players protect their queen much better than
their king. This leads to many missed mates and disappointments.

Quick fix:

You need to develop a sense of danger for the king protection. Until
you develop it, always check the possibilities of attacks on your king.
You will save many games, by avoiding mates-in-1.Comments are as always welcome!

Friday, October 18, 2013

Checkmate! Champion chess coach poaches entire TEAM of players to new college

Poached: Chess champion Susan Polgar brought an entire chess team to a new university

It’s not unusual in sport for a richer rival to prey on the best players of a competing team after they’ve found success.But even the New York Yankees couldn’t match the check-mate move that has shocked the genteel world of chess.For
just days after winning their second consecutive national college chess
title the entire Knights Raiders team has jumped ship, poached by
another university.America’s
reigning chess queen, four-time world champion and five-time Olympic
gold medallist Susan Polgar, masterminded the unprecedented switch.The
team coach is taking all seven of her players with her from Texas Tech
to the private Webster University in St Louis, Missouri.

A chess prodigy herself, chess grand master Ms Polgar became the world’s top ranked female player when she was just 15.Her team, all chess masters, were offered full scholarships by their new college, an offer that Texas Tech couldn’t match.The Midwest city is also hosting the US chess championships next month and is home to a brand new 6,000 square foot chess club.

‘St Louis today is the centre of
chess in America,’ Ms Polgar told the Associated Press. ‘It just seemed
like a perfect fit. The university is an overall good choice for them,
but it is a decision each member made individually.

Switch: The team coach is taking all seven of
her players with her from Texas Tech to the private Webster University
in St Louis, Missouri

‘We are one family and in that spirit
they know how much I fight for them and not just about chess, but with
whatever they need help with. ‘They
all are international students and it is part of my job to ensure that
they find a home away from home. I am very proud and very happy for
them,’ she added.Her team consists of players from around the world, including Germany, Iran, Israel, Brazil, Hungary and AberbaiijanProvost
Julian Schuster, a native of the former Yugoslavia who calls himself 'a
very strong fan and casual player,' helped broker the deal after
learning of Ms Polgar's interest through mutual friends.

Game on: Webster University provost Julian Schuster is looking forward to his new chess team

Commitment: Schuster was instrumental in
bringing the defending national champion chess team from Texas Tech to
little-known Webster University near St. Louis

He envisions a broader academic focus
revolving around chess, espousing a 'dream of connecting chess as not
only a game but as a didactic tool, to apply in a learning setting.'Neither Ms Polgar nor Schuster would discuss the specifics of the financial commitment to attract the program.About
30 schools nationwide have competitive chess teams, from Yale and
Princeton to Miami-Dade College and the University of West Indies. And
while college chess remains a niche activity, Ms Polgar's unprecedented
move has given the game a brief moment in the spotlight